This invention relates to an apparatus and method for preventing bed bugs from entering into and escaping out of a bed mattress. More particularly, the invention relates to a zipper closure for a mattress encasement which, while allowing insertion and removal of the mattress, prevents the entry or escapement of bed bugs past the encasement.
Bed bugs are a type of insect that commonly hides within bed mattresses. Such bed bugs are found in motels, hostels or boarding houses where itinerant travelers find overnight lodging. Bed bugs will feed off of the blood of humans sleeping on the mattresses that harbor these insects. Typically, a bed bug will crawl out of the mattress during the night, bite the sleeping victim, and then return to the safe confines of the mattress.
To prevent the entry or escapement of bed bugs from the mattress, and thus contain and starve the bugs, techniques have been devised in which the mattress is surrounded with a fabric cover or encasement. The encasement is slipped onto the mattress and closed via a fastening mechanism such as a zipper. Bugs escaping from the mattress, or trying to enter the mattress, will encounter the barrier of the fabric cover, and thus will be prevented from entering the mattress or escaping from the mattress to reach a human sleeping on the bed.
Problems exist, however, with the use of such protective mattress covers or encasements. For example, a user may fail to completely close the zipper on the encasement, or the zipper may become partially unzipped through movement or rustling of the mattress, as for example, when the bed is made and remade. This results in an opening at the zipper end stop through which bed bugs may enter or escape. Indeed, even zippers that have been carefully and completely closed may still leave a narrow opening at the end of the zipper that is a large enough for a small bed bug to crawl through.
Accordingly, there exists a need to prevent the entry or escapement of bed bugs from a zipper opening in a mattress protective encasement and to prevent bed bugs from entering or leaving the mattress through the same opening.